Rapid fire action and knuckle busting runs, that’s what’s happening around Block Island right now. It’s the hottest action anywhere, excluding the oppressive heat wave we now have. The North Rip is absolutely filled with dog fish and large bluefish all exceeding ten pounds or more.
A late Friday afternoon stop at the North Rip was unbelievable. The sonar screen was filled with icons from ten to eighty feet anywhere we drifted. Our jigs never had a chance to hit the bottom. The bad news is they are all gorilla bluefish packed in like sardines. Millions of sand eels provide an enormous food supply and the proper location of current. It made no difference whether you thrown metal or rubber; nothing was refused. If you switched to live eels you had plenty of wolf pack doggies on your bait. The bad news, not one stripers in the mix.
A short run to the southwest end of the island provided a better a window for stripers. That was short lived before old yellow eyes moved in again. We had flat seas and slow conditions till we noticed hundreds of birds working two miles off shore in the cross currents of the rip. Great conditions to test anyone’s skill and the stripers were very co-operative. Watching them take top water plugs and swimmers in the rough water was amazing. Further down, they would take rubber and stick baits too. We landed numerous stripers on a fly tail dancing across the peaks of each wave. Most stripers ranged from ten to twenty pounds.
After sunset we switched to live lining eels for a few hours. We hit the popular places like Southwest Ledge, Black Rock and Southeast Light. We did not have a run except for a few bluefish bites. Plenty of boats rafted up in each location, but nothing really got started tonight.
Saturday morning produce an entirely different venue. With the westerly winds dying off throughout the night, the southern shore around Block Island was totally flat. Plenty of sand eels were marked along the way. An occasional pod of birds would work the surface. We found stripers in the eighteen foot mark running in and out of the contours feeding on sand eels. There would be an occasional burst to the surface to let us know we were in the right place. These stripers were spooky fish on small bait in quiet water. Sand eel imitations with sinking lines worked for several hours before the heat and humidly ended the run along with more recreational boat traffic.
Captain’s Log:
This was an unusual fishing trip this weekend. We generally don’t stay the night and fish two days, but with the heat wave recently, we felt we could maximize better fishing conditions over a shorter period of time with less slack time doing it this way.
We had old friend, “Hard Core Mike Mayo” from Connecticut with us. I’ve know Mike maybe a decade now thru the Internet and some fishing shows. We talk a lot about fishing over the course of years but had only fished once together. We ran into each other at Block Island last weekend and I thought it would be a great idea to relive the younger years of our youth where we would constantly fish for days on end. Well those days are long gone doing it on a regular bases but this weekend was fun trying it again and rekindling old friendships.
Old friend Make Mayo
Nothing like holding a nice deep water full color spectrum pewter striper.
